


Say You Will

by awkwardauthoracts



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BARE: a pop opera - Freeform, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Role of a Lifetime, Romance, Slow Burn, marry me, train
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 18:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardauthoracts/pseuds/awkwardauthoracts
Summary: Based off "Role of a Lifetime" from Bare: A Pop Opera and "Marry Me" by Train~Viktor was not a very religious man. He was twenty-three and he had everything he ever thought he could want. He was living in a world where what he wanted was only what he wanted until it was his.He was losing sight of his dreams.Once, a long time ago, he collapsed at the foot of his bed after a long day of practice and fell to his knees. He prayed for the first time in his life, asking for help, for guidance. He got no answer and assumed God wasn't real or simply didn't care.Viktor still believed that God wasn't real, and if He was, He wasn't how churches made Him seem. But even if God wasn't real, Viktor knew that angels were.How did he know?He just met one.





	Say You Will

Viktor was twenty when he realized he didn't love skating like he used to.

For the fourth time this week, Viktor stayed on the rink long after everyone else had gone home, including Yakov. The sight of the usually crowded rink being totally empty still made him feel giddy. It wasn't the extra space he liked, but the lack of eyes on him as he skated.

Viktor had been on top of the skating world since he was sixteen, and he knew it. He was best one on the ice, not just at home in Saint Petersburg, or even all of Russia. He was the best in the world and that was an indisputable fact. For a while, he felt better than he ever thought was possible. He lived and breathed figure skating and he wouldn't have had it any other way. Flash forward four years and he didn't quite feel the same way. Skating was almost... a hassle.

Everyone was always watching. He was the Living Legend, so he wasn't allowed to stumble through a step sequence or touch down after a quad. God forbid he fall down.

But after the rink was empty, and the only skates on the ice were his own, Viktor found himself enjoying what he was doing. For a while, he practiced routines. He could stumble or touch down or fall or trip or be off or miss a step or just not be so perfect. It was nice for a bit, but then it got boring. After it got boring, it became something Viktor hated. So in hopes of rekindling his love for skating, he did  _whatever he wanted._

Some nights Viktor just slowly made his way around the perimeter of the rink. Sometimes he would spell out words or make shapes on the ice by skating in certain patterns. Sometimes he would see how quickly he could get from one side of the rink to another. He ended up improving his stamina and was able to go faster, but was nowhere near being as quick as a speed skater. Sometimes he would mess around with jumps, doing them at painfully slow speeds and ridiculously fast ones. Sometimes he would come back to the rink for practice the next day covered in bruises.

He never answered anyone's questions about what he had been doing.

But on this night, he fell down. Physically and mentally.

Viktor skated across the rink in a straight line, his feet moving through muscular memory alone. He kept picking up more and more speed until only about ten more meters of ice were in front of him. He closed his eyes and jumped. A quadruple flip, his signature move. His take-off was flawless. He defied physics and flew through the air. Everything seemed to slow down as he spun. Less than a millisecond before he landed, his eyes snapped open and he thought,  _nyet._

_No._

Viktor didn't touch down; he collapsed onto the unforgiving ice and slid forward. He laid there for a few moments, his brain throbbing against his skull. He turned his head to the side and saw a small puddle of blood on the ice where he fell. A thin trail of it led back to where he was now. He would have been concerned that he had gotten a concussion, but he had given himself one before and this wasn't it. It was a massive headache that wouldn't go away for hours and a bruise on the side of his head, just above his temple, but not a concussion.

He decided that was enough of that.

He skated to the barrier of the rink and left the ice. He pulled off his skates with excessive force because he barely unlaced them. He just wanted to get them off as fast as possible. They felt constricting in a way they never had before. He slipped on his running shoes and left the building, a streak of red running down his face.

When Viktor got home, Makkachin was already asleep. She woke at the sound of the front door opening and lifted her head but didn't get up. She knew Viktor wasn't going to sleep yet. He still had to shower and eat dinner before he climbed into his big, soft, warm bed. She didn't immediately notice her distraught owner's behavior. It was only when he dropped his bag and jacket on the floor in the middle of the room instead of putting them away did she pick up on the fact that something wasn't right.

Viktor walked into his room, gently closed the door behind him and dropped to his knees at the foot of his bed. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hands together so hard they were shaking. He didn't believe in God, and he never really had. He seldom thought about religion, only when he passed by a church or someone else brought it up, but at this point, he was desperate.

"I... I'm not sure how to do this. Uh... I, uh... I could really use some help? God? Anyone? I need your guidance. Nothing is as it seems. I've spent each day in this silent fear that even I struggled to hear for... for some time now. I hope that when I wake up, everything will be how it used to be, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon, if at all.

"Everything I do is an act because I have to please everyone. I have to surprise them because without that, what do I have? I know I take risks, but it doesn't feel like they're paying off. They're just... weighing me down.

"It's like... like I'm in a play and I'm the lead, but I hate the script. I hate the lights shining down on me and the eyes staring me down. I hate the stage and the curtains and the cast and the crew. I hate the music and sounds and costumes and the whole play. But... but it's the role of a lifetime, and I can't turn it down. It was fun at first, but I've been doing the same thing for  _years_. Do you know how exhausting that is? My thoughts are at war with each other behind my smiling face.

"I never say what I mean and I never mean what I say, but... but I know this can't be it for me. This can't be the rest of my life. I'm uninspired and frankly, I'm lonely. I'm trying to navigate the maze of life alone but it's just so hard. I'm filling my life with empty sound, but what happens when it stops? Will I be able to stay in the silence?

"I'm driving myself insane, spinning in circles and never looking up. It's all a game of pretend because every day I reprise the same role again and again. I don't know what to do. Give me a sign or something. Please? Anything?"

Viktor stayed like that for a very long time. He never got an answer.

"Okay, then." He stood and sighed.

"I wouldn't want to help me either."

Viktor opened his bedroom door to find Makkachin laying down in front of it as opposed to her bed which was just across the room. She perked up at the sight of her owner and Viktor kneeled down to meet her eyes. He didn't say anything, but she whimpered and nuzzled the crook of his neck. Viktor wrapped his arms around his amazing dog and ran his fingers through her fur. A whole minute ticked by before he got up.

"You're probably hungry, aren't you? Want something to eat, Makka?"

She barked excitedly at the word "eat". Viktor allowed himself a small smile at her enthusiasm. At least one of them could still get excited over the small things.

The pair made their way to the kitchen, which wasn't anything spectacular. Viktor couldn't afford to order out or eat frozen dinners with him being an athlete, so he needed a basic kitchen to prepare meals for himself.

He opened the largest drawer in the kitchen which held Makkachin's dry and wet food. Because Makka was such a big dog, she went through food rather quickly. She preferred wet food for obvious reasons, but if she only ate that, Viktor would be spending a ridiculous amount of money on dog food. He found that if he mixed together equal parts wet and dry food, Makkachin would eat happily.

As he was preparing her dinner, Viktor realized another thing: the only other thing he thought about besides skating was his dog.

"I'm pathetic," he mumbled under his breath as he sat down Makkachin's bowl. His sadness and disappointment quickly morphed into some sort of disgust at how low he had let himself get.

Viktor lazily reheated leftover rosemary lemon salmon and broccoli from a few nights ago. He ate mindlessly, burning his tongue and not really tasting the food. He didn't want to shower, as he felt to tired to and could just do it when he woke up, but he remembered that he hit his head. One glance in the bathroom mirror told him he had to wash all the dried blood off his face.

He met his own gaze in his reflection and felt pity for the person he saw in the mirror. Then he remembered the person he saw was successful, famous, and ungrateful. The person in the mirror was selfish and cruel, thinking he deserved more than he already had. He had the world in his hand and this was how he acted? He had no reason to be unhappy, so why did he look so sad? His eyes were the most vacant Viktor had ever seen. They were neither cold nor warm, just empty. They were the eyes of a hopeless winner.

The person in the mirror forced a smile to his face, just to see how it would look. People took hundreds, if not thousands of pictures of that smile, so it had to be perfect. And it was. His smile was the textbook definition of perfect. White teeth, even grin, a bit of mischief, and pride made up that smile, but there are some things that cannot be put down on words. His smile did not reach his dull eyes, and it didn't create smile lines like it should. It was technically flawless, but it had never looked worse. But to someone who had only ever seen that smile, it was perfect. It was happy.

It was not happy.

Viktor stripped down quickly and turned on the hot water. He didn't wait for it to heat up and shivered as he froze. He looked down and put a hand on his stomach. He was in good shape, and he knew that. Great shape. Almost perfect. He had been in such good shape for so long, he almost wished he weren't. At least then he could have some variety in his diet. There were so many things he wanted to try. Like... like churros. (Viktor had heard a number of phenomenal things about churros in his travels around the world for competitions.)

Droplets of water fell off the ends of Viktor's hair as he soaked it before shampooing. Suds dripped down his back and landed on the floor of the tub with a blunt splat. The pink water around his feet began to dance at every minute movement he made.

He finished washing himself in a few short minutes but didn't turn off the faucet or step out of the shower. He raised the heat of the water so his skin turned red. Viktor let his shoulders scream under the now painful heat.

If you asked him why he did this, he would shrug. He didn't know why he did it, why he intentionally hurt himself. He blamed it on being around ice all day so he was just cold. A running shower was the only warmth he felt all day besides Makkachin. He could barely remember the last time someone had held him for longer than a few seconds. Even then, it was always brief and awkward and cold.

Everything was so cold.

Viktor was absolutely sick of the cold and he didn't know how to feel warm again.

Viktor won several gold medals that season. They all went in an empty shoe box that was shoved under his bed and forgotten about.

~

On the other side of the world, a young boy in Hasetsu just landed his first triple flip.


End file.
